System and Method for Monitoring a Sentiment Score

ABSTRACT

A system and method are disclosed for scoring sentiments of communication activity and includes one or more databases that stores data describing electronic communication between one or more customer devices and one or more service center devices and a computer. The computer is configured to monitor communication activity of the one or more customer devices and the one or more service center devices to determine whether a communication channel has been opened between the one or more customer devices and the one or more service center devices and identify one or more communication activities associated with the electronic communications. The computer is further configured to compare the identified one or more communication activities with one or more predetermined communication data, determine a sentiment score based on one or more correlations between the identified one or more communication activities and the communication data.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/615,534, filed on Jun. 6, 2017, entitled “System and Method forMonitoring a Sentiment Score”, which is a continuation in part of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 14/485,626, filed on Sep. 12, 2014, entitled“Customer Management System”, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,710,814. The subjectmatter disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/615,534 and U.S.patent Ser. No. 14/485,626 are hereby incorporated by reference into thepresent disclosure as if fully set forth herein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates generally to a customer management systemand specifically to monitoring relationships and communication activitybased on sentiments.

BACKGROUND

In most company environments, a customer experience is not an isolatedconversation but a series of experiences as a relationship evolves overtime. The demand of customers to utilize multiple means of communicationhas led to disjointed conversations between the customer and thecompany. The fragmentation across systems to manage these interactionshas proven challenging in understanding a customer's sentiment towards acompany or if they are likely to recommend a company to other potentialcustomers.

The medium in which customers communicate with companies has grownexponentially in a short period of time. Traditionally, companiescommunicate with their customers verbally (in person, telephone, etc.)or in written communications (mail, email, etc.). Modern communicationshave added even more channels (internet chat, sms, social media, apps,etc.). This has led to disjointed exchanges adding to both the length ofthe conversation and the volume of the content. In many cases, multipleemployees and/or different groups within a company will interact with anindividual customer throughout the same conversation. This complexityhas resulted in companies having no effective way to understand theemotional state (customer sentiment) of a customer in real-time or asthe relationship evolves with the company through its variousinteractions. Therefore, previous methods of measuring customersatisfaction have proven inadequate in measuring and monitoringreal-time sentiment towards a company.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more complete understanding of the present invention may be derived byreferring to the detailed description when considered in connection withthe following illustrative figures. In the figures, like referencenumbers refer to like elements or acts throughout the figures.

FIG. 1 illustrates a customer management system according to a firstembodiment;

FIG. 2 illustrates the system administrator of FIG. 1 according to anembodiment;

FIG. 3 illustrates the communication system of FIG. 1 according to anembodiment;

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary method of monitoring and scoring thesentiment of a customer and a representative of a service center; and

FIG. 5 illustrates the communication channels of FIG. 1 in greaterdetail according to an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Aspects and applications of the invention presented herein are describedbelow in the drawings and detailed description of the invention. Unlessspecifically noted, it is intended that the words and phrases in thespecification and the claims be given their plain, ordinary, andaccustomed meaning to those of ordinary skill in the applicable arts.

In the following description, and for the purposes of explanation,numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the various aspects of the invention. It will beunderstood, however, by those skilled in the relevant arts, that thepresent invention may be practiced without these specific details. Inother instances, known structures and devices are shown or discussedmore generally in order to avoid obscuring the invention. In many cases,a description of the operation is sufficient to enable one to implementthe various forms of the invention, particularly when the operation isto be implemented in software. It should be noted that there are manydifferent and alternative configurations, devices and technologies towhich the disclosed inventions may be applied. The full scope of theinventions is not limited to the examples that are described below.

As described more fully below, aspects of the following disclosurerelate to monitoring relationships and communication activity betweencustomers and representatives of a company, such as for example, aservice center. In addition to monitoring relationships andcommunication activity, identifying the customer's emotional state ofmind in real-time can be very valuable to the company. According to oneaspect, embodiments provide for monitoring purposes, customer andemployee performance, and reviews which can be used in real-time toincrease customer satisfaction levels and build better customerrelationships while addressing the customer's emotional needs. Thisfurther provides opportunities for the company to address operationalinefficiencies, reduce customers churn, increase repurchase and increasethe value of the customer through product and service upsell. Inaddition, or as an alternative, it allows a company to measure not onlycustomer sentiment but also the employee sentiment towards an individualcustomer or all customers.

According to a second aspect, embodiments bring visibility to a companythat it did not have before, such as, for example, measuring thefeelings of customers in real-time and identifying opportunitiesinternal to the company, such as, relating to the companies staff and/orprocesses. According to a third aspect, a company may simulate thecommunication activity between customers and the company by being awareof the customer's emotional state. That is, a company and its employeeshas the visibility to appropriately respond to the customer desires andconcerns, based on the customer's emotional state of mind in real-time.In addition, as the customer's sentiment is captured with everyinteraction, the company can view the information at an interaction orconversion level and aggregate the information for the individual or anygroup of customers across the entire customer base. According to a thirdaspect, embodiments provide for a company to also benchmark themselvesanonymously with other companies that participate in data sharingprograms. By combining customer interactions over time, a company mayunderstand the complete customer journey and state of mind and use thisinformation to identify opportunities, such as, for example, to retainmore customers, increase repeated purchases and create more value fromthe customers.

According to fourth aspect, embodiments provide for measuring thesentiment of a customer and a representative throughout the interactionof their communication activity and provides a company, such as, aservice center with a real-time response, based on the customer's and/orthe representative's sentiments. For example, when a customercommunicates an angry email, embodiments identify the sentiment of theemail communication and automate an appropriate response or anotheraction. That is, measuring the customer's sentiment provides an idealguide for the representative in real-time to be able to get the customerback on track or provide opportunities for a possible upsell.

According to a fifth aspect, measuring the sentiment provides areal-time indicator of the feeling, behavior, viewpoint and/or mindsetof the customer and the representative based on, among other things, thecommunication and language used by the customer and the representative.As an example only and not by way of limitation, a subjective emotionalanalysis of the language used, may be scored and represented by anumerical value. In addition, or as an alternative, the subjectiveemotional analysis is a component of the sentiment which may beindicated by a numerical value, a color code and/or a series of phrases,such as, “Happy,” “Satisfied,” “Content,” “Not Satisfied,” and “NotHappy.” Based on the sentiment score, and as discussed in more detailbelow, embodiments trigger automated processes, responses, suggestionsfor the representatives, and the like. In addition, embodiments trackthe communication activity to determine whether the sentiment score isescalating or deescalating.

According to a sixth aspect, the customer sentiment of eachcommunication activity between a customer and a company may be brokendown into each exchange between the customer and the employees of thecompany, such that the company is able to view the progress of theentire communication activity. At the same time, all information can beviewed at an aggregated level in real-time and for future reference.This allows a company to track the starting point of the interactionsbetween a customer and a company and measure the progress of thecommunication activity. This provides for, among other things, data thatcan be viewed over time to see the customer's journey at the aggregateand detail level.

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary customer management system 100,according to a first embodiment. Customer management system 100comprises one or more system administrators 110, one or more customers120, one or more cloud datastores 130, one or more service centers 140,a network 150, and communication links 152, 154 a-n, 156, and 158.Although one or more system administrators 110, one or more customers120, one or more cloud datastores 130, one or more service centers 140,a single network 150, and communication links 152, 154 a-n, 156, and 158are shown and described, embodiments contemplate any number of systemadministrators, customers, service centers, cloud datastores, networks,or communication links, according to particular needs.

In one embodiment, one or more system administrators 110 comprisesserver 112 and database 114. Server 112 is programmed to monitor andanalyze communication activity, such as, for example, telephone calls,emails, instant, chat or text messaging, posting to social media, blogs,or newsgroups, and any other communications between one or morecustomers 120 and one or more service centers 140. Database 114comprises one or more databases or other data storage arrangements atone or more locations, local to, or remote from, one or more systemadministrators 110. In one embodiment, one or more databases 114 iscoupled with one or more servers 112 using one or more local areanetworks (LANs), metropolitan area networks (MANs), wide area networks(WANs), network 150, such as, for example, the Internet, or any otherappropriate wire line, wireless, or any other communication links. Oneor more databases 114 stores data that is made available and may be usedby one or more servers 112 according to the operation of customermanagement system 100.

In one embodiment, one or more customers 120 comprises customers suchas, for example, a buyer, customer, retailer, or any other individual,business or enterprise which communicates with service centers 140. Oneor more customers 120 comprise one or more communication systems 122a-122 n that send or receive communications to and from one or moreservice centers 140. Communication systems 122 a-122 n may comprisecommunication devices 124 and server 126, and include any system locatedat one or more customers 120 that is configured to send and receivecommunications. Each communication device 124 may provide one or morecustomers 120 and one or more service centers a communication channelbetween the one or more customers 120 and one or more service centers140. One or more customers 120 may be coupled with one or more servicecenters 140 by network 150 via communication links 154 a-154 n and 158.Customer management system 100 may monitor relationships of one or morecustomers 120 based on sentiments of interactions and communicationsamong communication systems 122 a-122 n at a single customer 120, amongcommunication systems 122 a-122 n located at multiple customers 120, andbetween multiple communication systems 122 a-122 n and one or moreservice centers 140.

In another embodiment, one or more cloud datastores 130 comprises server132 and database 134. Cloud datastores 130 provide for the storage ofdata and hosting of programs or applications. According to embodiments,server 132 of cloud datastores 140 may host and run one or more runtimeprocesses associated with system administrator 110. Server 132 comprisesany server configured to access, update and provide data associated withone or more system administrators 110, one or more customers 120 or oneor more service centers 140. Database 134 comprises one or moredatabases or other data storage arrangements at one or more locations,local to, or remote from, one or more system administrators 110. In oneembodiment, one or more databases 134 is coupled with one or moreservers 132 using one or more LANs, WANs, MANs, network 150, such as,for example, the Internet, or any other appropriate wire line, wireless,or any other communication links. One or more databases 134 stores datathat is made available and may be used by one or more customers 120, oneor more service centers 140, and one or more servers 132 according tothe operation of customer management system 100.

According to embodiments, one or more service centers 140 may be anyentity, such as, for example, a business, company, enterprise,distributor, retailer, call-center, CRM specialist system, customerservice system, help desk system, telephone or media service, socialmedia service (such as FACEBOOK, TWITTER, or the like) or any entitywhich communicates with customers 120, either its own customers 120 orthe customers 120 of another entity. One or more service centers 140 mayoperate on one or more computers comprising one or more servers 142 andone or more databases 144 or other data storage arrangements at one ormore locations which are integral to or separate from the hardwareand/or software that supports customer management system 100.

In addition, or as an alternative, one or more service centers 140 maycomprise one or more communication systems 146 that send or receivecommunications to and from one or more customers 120. Communicationsystems 146 may comprise communication devices 148, and include anysystem located at one or more service centers 140 that is configured tosend and receive communications. Each communication device 148 mayprovide one or more service centers 140 and one or more customers 120 acommunication channel between one or more customers 120 and one or moreservice centers 140. One or more service centers 140 may utilizecustomer management system 100 to monitor relationships based onsentiments of interactions and communications among communicationsystems 146 within a single service center 140, among multiplecommunication systems 146 located at one or more service centers 140,and between multiple service centers 140 and multiple customers 120. Inaddition, and as discussed in more detail below communications systems146 may each operate on separate computer systems or may operate on oneor more shared computer systems. Each of these one or more computersystems may be a work station, personal computer, network computer,laptop computer, notebook computer, tablet-type device, smartphone,terminal, or any other suitable communication device. In addition,communication devices 146 may comprises a land-line or VoIP telephone.

One or more system administrators 110 including server 112 and database114 is coupled with network 150 using communications link 152, which maybe any wireline, wireless, or other link suitable to support datacommunications between one or more system administrators 110 and network150. One or more customers 120 is coupled with network 150 usingcommunications links 154 a-n, which may be any wireline, wireless, orother link suitable to support data communications between one or morecustomers 120 and network 150. One or more cloud datastores 130including server 132 and database 134 is coupled with network 150 usingcommunications link 156, which may be any wireline, wireless, or otherlink suitable to support data communications between one or more clouddatastores 130 and network 150. One or more service centers 140including server 142 and database 144 is coupled with network 150 usingcommunications link 158, which may be any wireless or other linksuitable to support data communications between one or more servicecenters 140 and network 150.

Although communication links 152, 154 a-n, 156, and 158 are shown asgenerally coupling one or more system administrators 110, one or morecustomers 120, one or more cloud datastores 130, and one or more servicecenters 140 with network 150, one or more system administrators 110, oneor more customers 120, one or more cloud datastores 130, and one or moreservice centers 140 may communicate directly with each other accordingto particular needs.

In an embodiment, network 150 includes the Internet, telephone lines,any appropriate local area networks LANs, MANs, or WANs, and any othercommunication network coupling one or more system administrators 110,one or more customers 120, one or more cloud datastores 130, and one ormore service centers 140. For example, data may be maintained by one ormore system administrators 110 or one or more cloud datastores 130 atone or more locations external to one or more system administrators 110and/or one or more cloud datastores 130 and made available to one ormore system administrators 110, one or more customers 120, one or morecloud datastores 130, one or more service centers 140 using network 150or in any other appropriate manner. Those skilled in the art willrecognize that the complete structure and operation of communicationnetwork 150 and other components within customer management system 100are not depicted or described. Embodiments may be employed inconjunction with known communications networks and other components.

In one embodiment, one or more system administrators 110, one or morecustomers 120, one or more cloud datastores 130, and/or one or moreservice centers 140 may each operate on one or more computers orcomputer systems that are integral to or separate from the hardwareand/or software that support customer management system 100. In additionor as an alternative, one or more users or representatives, may beassociated with customer management system 100 including one or moresystem administrators 110, one or more customers 120, one or more clouddatastores 130, and/or one or more service centers 140. These one ormore users may include, for example, one or more computers programmed toautonomously handle monitoring relationships based on sentiments of oneor more customers 120 and one or more service centers 140 and/or one ormore related tasks within customer management system 100. As usedherein, the term “computer” or “computer system” includes any suitableinput device, such as a keypad, mouse, touch screen, microphone, orother device to input information. Any suitable output device that mayconvey information associated with the operation of customer managementsystem 100, including digital or analog data, visual information, oraudio information. Furthermore, the computer includes any suitable fixedor removable non-transitory computer-readable storage media, such asmagnetic computer disks, CD-ROM, or other suitable media to receiveoutput from and provide input to customer management system 100. Thecomputer also includes one or more processors and associated memory toexecute instructions and manipulate information according to theoperation of customer management system 100.

In one embodiment and as discussed in more detail below, customermanagement system 100 comprises one or more system administrators 110and/or service centers 140, which monitors and scores the sentiment of auser associated with one or more customers 120 and/or one or moreservice centers 140 and provides the sentiment score to service centers140. In addition, or as an alternative, customer management system 100stores and organizes sentiment scores based on topics related to a userinteraction between customers 120 and service centers 140 over one ormore communication channels such as, for example, telephone, text-basedchat, email, or the like. Accordingly, customer management system 100provides a system and method for monitoring and scoring user sentimentsbased on topics, channels, response times, and other sentiment criteriaas described in more detail below.

By way of example only and not by limitations, embodiments contemplate aservice center 140 being a customer service center (such as, forexample, a call center or a retail service desk) and customers 120 beinga customer of one or more service centers 140 which sold, serviced, orotherwise provides subscription services to one or more customers 120.Such subscription services may include, for example, a cloud-based emailor voice-over-internet-protocol (VOIP) service. Although a particularservice is described; embodiments contemplate any service orrelationship between one or more customers 120 and one or more servicecenters 140.

Continuing with the above example, a customer associated with customers120 may call a service center 140 and speak with a representative toinquire about a password reset of a web-based email program. Whencustomer service center 140 receives a communication, over acommunication channel, such as, for example, a telephone call, customermanagement system 100 identifies the communication channel as being avoice channel initiated by the telephone call, categorizes the telephonecall as a password reset request, and generates a sentiment score of theinteraction between the user associated with customer 120 and therepresentative of the service center 140.

As will be explained in more detail below, the sentiment score takesinto account any interaction with the customer of customers 120 and therepresentative of service centers 140, service center 140 as a whole,the individual or combined cases associated with service center 140 andthe overall customer base of other customers having the same overallcases. System administrators 110 determines the sentiment score basedon, for example, the severity of the problem the customer is callingabout, how frequent the customer has called, the tone or words used bythe customer and various other factors described in more detail below.Based on these factors, system administrators 110 determines thesentiment score, based on, for example, whether the customer is “happy,”“satisfied,” “content,” “not satisfied,” “not happy” and may have anumerical range associated with it, for example, 1-10 or a color rangeassociated with it, for example, green to red.

According to embodiments, the sentiment score provides service center140 with an indication on whether the customer has a positive, neutral,or negative opinion of the representatives of service center 140, theservice center 140 or the associated products or services of servicecenter 140. In one embodiment, this indication is used in prioritizingresponses to customers 120, generating metrics for an indication of howwell customer service center 140 is operating, offering concessions tocustomers 120 based on the customers sentiment score, initiatingcampaigns to resolve frequent or disruptive problems, and the like. Inaddition, or as an alternative, system administrators 110 monitors whichcustomers 120 are likely to, for example, cancel services, subscribe tomore services, recommend the services to other customers, or the like.

Although, only a single customer associated with customers 120 isdescribed above; embodiments contemplate more than one customerassociated with customers 120. For example, if customers 120 representsan organization or entity, there may be more than one individualassociated with the organization or entity that contacts service centers140. Likewise, although only a single point of contact, i.e., arepresentative is described as being associated with one or more servicecenters 140; embodiments contemplate more than one point of contact,i.e., multiple representatives at one or more service centers 140. Forexample, and as discussed above, if service centers 140 providessubscription services to customers 120, customers 120 may speak withdifferent representatives of service centers 140 to inquire aboutvarious subscription services, various issues and at various times.

FIG. 2 illustrates system administrator 110 of FIG. 1 in greater detail,according to an embodiment. As discussed above, system administrator 110comprises one or more computers at one or more locations includingassociated input devices, output devices, non-transitorycomputer-readable storage media, processors, memory, or other componentsfor capturing the sentiment of one or more customers 120 and one or moreservice centers 140 according to the operation of customer managementsystem 100. In addition, and as discussed in more detail below, systemadministrator 110 comprises server 112 and database 114. Although systemadministrator 110 is shown and described as comprising a singlecomputer, server 112 and database 114; embodiments contemplate anysuitable number of computers, servers or databases internal to orexternally coupled with system administrator 110. In addition, or as analternative, system administrator 110 may be located internal to one ormore service centers 140. In other embodiments, system administrator 110may be located external to one or more service centers 140 and may belocated in, for example, a corporate or regional entity of the one ormore service centers 140, according to particular needs.

Server 112 comprises system administration module 222, graphical userinterface module 224, database management module 226 and channelinterface module 228. Although a particular configuration of server 112is shown and described; embodiments contemplate any suitable number orcombination of these, located at one or more locations, local to, orremote from, system administrator 110, according to particular needs. Inaddition, or as an alternative, administration 222, graphical userinterface module 224, database management module 226 and channelinterface module 228 may be located on multiple servers or computers atany location in customer management system 100.

Database 114 comprises service center data 202, configuration data 204,communication data 206 and case data 208. Although, database 114 isshown and described as comprising service center data 202, configurationdata 204, communication data 206 and case data 208; embodimentscontemplate any suitable number or combination of these, located at oneor more locations, local to, or remote from, system administrator 110,according to particular needs.

Service center data 202 of database 114 describes the identificationinformation of one or more service centers 140 of customer managementsystem 100. Service center data 202 comprises identificationinformation, such as, for example, names, addresses, company, telephonenumbers, email, IP addresses, and the like. In one embodiment, servicecenter data 202 is used by system administration module 222 to identifyone or more service centers 140 in customer management system 100 togenerate particular configurations of customer management system 100specific to each of the one or more service centers 140. As an exampleonly and not by way of limitation, where one or more service centers 140is a customer service center, the identification information stored inservice center data 202 permits system administrator 110 to generate aparticularized user interface specific to the customer service center.Specifically, system administration module 222 provides a particularizeduser interface specific to the industry of service center 140, the typesof customers served by one or more service centers 140, and/or the typesof products sold by one or more service centers 140. In addition, or asan alternative, the particularized user interfaces are stored in, forexample, configuration data 204.

Configuration data 204 of database 114 comprises data which describesthe various functionalities of customer management system 100 useful toeach of one or more service centers 140 and one or more customers 120.In one embodiment, configuration data 204 comprises, for example,location data that describes where the data is generated or received bysystem administrator 110, customers 120, cloud datastores 130 and/orservice centers 140. In another embodiment, configuration data 204comprises settings and parameters that describe the system-levelfunctioning of customer management system 100. In addition, or as analternative, configuration data 204 comprises data representing topics,channels, response times, and other sentiment criteria related to theinteraction between users of customers 120 and representatives ofservice centers 140 and the type of communication channel.

Communication data 206 of database 114 comprises the communicationactivity of communication devices 124 and any organization and setup ofchannel interface module 228. According to some embodiments,communication data 206 comprises the particular communication channelswhich are open to a particular customer 120 or service centers 140, thetimes which the communication channels are open, the protocols ormetadata which describe the communication, and/or any otherconfiguration data and setup data necessary to configure channelinterface module 228.

Case data 208 of database 114 comprises data generated by one or moreservice centers 140 relating to a case or a ticket associated with oneor more customers 120. In one embodiment, case data 208 includes, but isnot limited to: an identity of the user of one or more customers 120which created the case or ticket, communication system 122 a-122 n or acompany of the one or more customers 120 to which the case or ticketrelates, the communication channel by which one or more customers 120contacted the one or more service centers 140, the number of contactsbetween one or more customers 120 and one or more service centers 140(historically or for a given time period), the total time spent on eachcommunication channel, the cost associated with each communicationactivity, the time and date of the case or ticket creation, and a log ofthe information shared during the communication activity between one ormore customers 120 and one or more service centers 140. In addition, oras an alternative, case data 208 additionally comprises purchases,sales, subscriptions, purchase history, sales history, and/or otherhistorical data describing the relationship of the one or more customers120 to one or more service centers 140 or any other goods or servicesprovided. In this way, case data 208 provides customer management system100 with information about the history of the customer base that each ofcustomers 120 represents or that each of the representatives of servicecenters 140 represents for any given time period.

System administration module 222 of server 112 may configure, update,and/or administer customer management system 100. That is, systemadministration module 222 may provide services to configure theoperation of customer management system 100 and change which data isexecuted and/or stored on system administrator 110, one or morecustomers 120, and/or one or more service centers 140. Embodimentscontemplate a user-configurable customer management system 100, suchthat the data may be stored either singularly or redundantly on systemadministrator 110, one or more customers 120, and/or one or more servicecenters 140, according to particular needs. In addition, or as analternative, system administration module 222 receives, processes,updates, creates, and stores service center data 202 and configurationdata 204.

Graphical user interface module 224 of server 112 generates a graphicaluser interface comprising various features of sentiment scores, such as,for example: generating charts, storing and retrieving historical dataof customer relationship management, and displaying notifications.Graphical user interface module 224 stores and retrieves data fromdatabase 114 including service center data 202, configuration data 204,communication data 206, and case data 208. According to embodiments, andas discussed in more detail below, graphical user interface module 224displays a representation of a sentiment score to the representative ofone or more service centers 140 represented by a numerical value, colorcode, and/or a series of phrases. In addition, or as an alternative, therepresentation of the sentiment score may be displayed each time a userof one or more customers 120 initiates communication activity, each timethe representative responds and/or for the entire communicationactivity.

Database management module 226 of server 112 provides a data sorting,retrieval, duplication, backup, creation and/or interface manager fordata stored in database 114 to efficiently provide data to one or morecustomers 120 and one or more service centers 140 and manage the datagenerated from various components of customer management system 100 thatare stored in database 114. According to some embodiments, databasemanagement module 226 organizes and stores the various types of datagenerated from customer management system 100 to provide real-timeaccess of the data on database 114 to operate customer management system100.

Channel interface module 228 of server 112 generates, receives, andmonitors communication activity between one or more customers 120 andone or more service centers 140. For example, channel interface module228 comprises one or more of VOIP, email, internet or web-based chat,and/or other types of communication systems useful for allowingcustomers 120 to contact one or more service centers 140 or one or moreservice centers 140 to contact one or more customers 120 or otherservice centers 140. For example, channel interface module 228 initiatesor receives communication to communication devices 124 of one or morecommunication systems 122 a-122 n. In addition, channel interface module228 records the time, duration, date, voice, text, and other informationtransmitted.

In addition, and as discussed in more detail below, system administrator110 monitors the communication activity between customers 120 andservice centers 140 and stores the monitored communication activity ascommunication data 206 in database 114. Communication data 206 may becollected by system administrator 110 and may comprise, for example, thetime of a communication, the person that initiated the communication,the communication channel used for the communication, and other dataassociated with the communication activity. By collecting communicationdata 206, system administrator 110 improves and automates monitoringrelationships and communication activity based on sentiments. Accordingto embodiments, system administrator 110 automates tasks such asdetermining and monitoring a sentiment score based on an interactionbetween a customer and one or more service centers 140. Embodiments ofsystem administrator 110 may be tailored to call center environments,professional office organizations, or any other type of businessenvironments, in which, a customer is communicating with one or moreservice centers 140.

In one embodiment, system administrator 110 comprises a centralizedcomputer system which operates the system-level architecture of customermanagement system 100. In this manner, system administrator 110 throughone or more modules provides customer management system 100 the abilityto rapidly update and/or reconfigure communication activity between oneor more customers 120 and one or more service centers 140 from a singleor central location.

FIG. 3 illustrates communication systems 122 a-122 n of FIG. 1 ingreater detail according to an embodiment. Communication systems 122a-122 n may comprise communication devices 124, server 126, and/orcommunication channels 310-314 which may be configured to communicatewith network 150, system administrator 110, one or more cloud datastores130, and communication devices 148 of one or more service centers 140.In one embodiment, one or more communication systems 122 a-122 n mayeach operate on separate computer systems or may operate on one or moreshared computer systems. Each of these one or more computer systems maybe a computer system 302, such as a work station, personal computer,network computer, laptop computer, notebook computer, tablet-type device304, smartphone 306, terminal, or any other suitable communicationdevice 124. In addition, communication devices 124 may comprise aland-line or VoIP telephone 308. According to embodiments each of thecommunication devices 124 are configured to communicate withcommunication devices 148 over a communication channel.

Computer system 302, one or more tablet-type devices 304, smartphones306, and land-line or VoIP telephone 308 may comprise a processor,memory and data storage. The processor may execute an operating systemprogram stored in memory to control the overall operation of computersystem 302, one or more tablet-type devices 304 and/or smartphones 306.For example, the processor may control the reception of signals and thetransmission of signals within customer management system 100. Theprocessor may execute other processes and programs resident in memory,such as, for example, registration, identification or communication overthe communication channels and move data into or out of the memory, asrequired by an executing process.

Those skilled in the art will recognize that one or more specificexamples of communication systems 122 a-122 n are given by way ofexample and that for simplicity and clarity, only so much of theconstruction and operation of one or more communication systems 122a-122 n as is necessary for an understanding of the present invention isshown and described. Moreover, it is understood that one or morecommunication systems 122 a-122 n should not be construed to limit thetypes of devices in which embodiments of the present invention may beimplemented. For example, one or more communication systems 122 a-122 nmay be any device, including, but not limited to, conventional cellularor mobile telephones, smart mobile phones, an IPHONE™, an IPAD™,wireless tablet devices, paging devices, personal digital assistantdevices, short message service (SMS) wireless devices, portablecomputers, or any other device capable of wireless or networkcommunication.

According to embodiments, each of the one or more communication devices124 and 148 (see FIG. 1) may be assigned one or more identificationnumbers, such as IP addresses, serial numbers, or telephone numbers thatmay be used to identify communication devices 124 and 148. According tosome embodiments, each communication device 124 and 148 is associatedwith an identification number, such as an IP or MAC address. Inaddition, or as an alternative, communication systems 122 a-122 n may belocal to or remote from one or more customers 120 and one or moreservice centers 140. That is, communication devices 124 of one or morecustomers 120 may communicate with communication devices 146 of one ormore service centers 140. For example, system administrator 110 isprogrammed to monitor and analyze communication activity viacommunication channels, such as, for example, telephone calls, emails,instant, chat or text messaging, posting to social media, blogs, ornewsgroups, and any other communication activity between communicationdevices 124 of one or more customers 120 and communication devices 148of one or more service centers 140.

Customer management system 100 may then leverage the identity ofcommunication devices 124 and 148 and communication activity over acommunication channel for each communication device 124 and 148 tocollect information about, for example, a telephone call or othercommunication activity between one or more customers 120 and one or moreservice centers 140, as described herein. Such information may then beused to determine a sentiment score as an indicator of behavior,viewpoint and/or mindset of the communication activity between the twousers or entities. For example and as discussed above, according to someembodiments, customer management system 100 monitors communicationactivities between communication devices 124 of one or more customers120 and communication devices 148 of one or more service centers 140,such as the telephone call using land line 308.

In this example, when a telephone call is received, customer managementsystem 100 may identify the caller and the representative (based on atelephone number stored in service center data 202) as a customer havinga subscription services and route the call directly to a representativeassigned to the customer. Customer management system 100 may then recordthe telephone call and generate a sentiment score of the communicationactivity based on each time the customer talks, each time therepresentative responds and/or based on the entire telephone call. Forexample, and as discussed in more detail below, a sentiment score may begenerated during the communication activity, in this case, the telephonecall, for both the customer and the representative assigned to thecustomer. In this way, customer management system 100 tracks thesentiment of the customer and the representative in a real-time mannerand provides the sentiment of the customer to the representative duringthe telephone call. The representative, may then respond to the customerbased on the ongoing sentiment score appropriately and/or triggerautomated processes, responses or suggestions for the representative.Likewise, the communication activity is tracked by customer managementsystem 100 to determine whether the sentiment of the communicationactivity is escalating or deescalating.

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary method 400 of monitoring and scoring thesentiment of one or more customers 120 and/or one or more servicecenters 140. The process of monitoring and scoring proceeds by one ormore activities, which although described in a particular order may beperformed in one or more permutations, according to particular needs.

Method 400 begins at activity 402 where system administrator 110monitors one or more communication devices 124 and 148 and recordscommunication activity via a communication channel between one or morecustomers 120 and one or more service centers 140. According toembodiments and as discussed above, channel interface module 228 ofsystem administrator 110 monitors communication activity to determinewhether a communication channel has been opened between one or morecustomers 120 and one or more service centers 140. For example, when acommunication channel is opened, system administrator 110 monitors thecommunication activity for: the time of the communication; who placedthe communication; who received the communication; the communicationduration; the contents of the communication; and/or other likecommunication activity information.

In addition, or as an alternative, each communication activity isassociated with one or more cases or tickets of one or more servicecenters 140, and logged in connection with case data 208. As discussedabove, case data 208 comprises data relating to a case or a ticketassociated with one or more customers 120 and may include, for example,data describing the relationship of one or more customers 120 to one ormore service centers 140. In addition, system administrator 110 may workin connection with other systems and devices to automatically detect andmonitor when a communication activity is initiated on a communicationdevice 124 and/or 148 and log the communication activity incommunication data 206 of system administrator 110.

At activity 404, system administrator 110 records and storescommunication activity as communication data 206 in database 114. Asdiscussed above, recording and storing the communication activity may bedone each time one or more customers 120 communicates with arepresentative of one or more service centers 140, each time therepresentative of one or more service centers 140 communicates with oneor more customers 120 and/or based on the entire communication activitybetween one or more customers 120 and a representative of one or moreservice centers 140. Such storage may require large amounts of on-siteor off-site data storage solutions owing to the enormous amount of datathat may be collected for even a small business. Embodiments contemplateany suitable number or structure of local or remote data storagesolutions to store communication data 206, such as for example, database134 of cloud datastore 130. Like communication data 206, configurationdata 204 may require large amounts of on-site or off-site data storagesolutions and may be stored on database 134 of cloud datastore 130.

At activity 406, system administrator 110 analyzes communication data206 to determine a sentiment score of users associated with customers120 and/or representatives associated with service centers 140 andprovides the sentiment score to service centers 140. In one embodiment,a sentiment of the language used in the communication activity betweenone or more customers 120 and a representative of one or more servicecenters 140, is scored based on a continuous sequence of n items for agiven sequence of the communication activity. As an example only and notby way of limitation, a user associated with customers 120 opens acommunication channel using, for example, chat as a communicationactivity with one or more service centers 140 and is assigned aparticular representative. In this example, the user types into the chatwindow “I am getting choppy audio on my VOIP phone.” Based on this,system administrator 110 breaks the sequence of words into a trigrami.e., three adjacent elements from the sequence of words and comparesthe three adjacent elements to determine if any of those elements arenegative or positive. Continuing with this example, the sequence ofwords is shown in TABLE 1:

TABLE 1 I am getting am getting choppy getting choppy audio choppy audioon audio on my on my VOIP my VOIP phone

System administrator 110 then determines whether each of the threeadjacent elements from the sequence is positive, neutral or negative,based on a comparison of predetermined key words, as discussed in moredetail below. Continuing with this example, the adjacent words “gettingchoppy audio” are determined to be negative and a negative score isassociated with the sequence of words. Although a particular number forn items is shown and described as a trigram i.e., three elements,embodiments contemplate any number of n items or adjacent elements,according to particular needs.

According to another embodiment, a sentiment of the language used in thecommunication activity between one or more customers 120 and arepresentative of one or more service centers 140, is scored based on amapping of word vectors. As an example only and not by way oflimitation, predetermined words are given negative or positive weightingand then related words in context are deemed positive, neutral ornegative based on their proximity to the predetermined words in wordvectors. Proximity is based on syntactic and/or semantic similarity,depending on the model in use. Continuing with the above example, if agiven negative word was “intermittent”, and the system administrator 110finds that “choppy” is in close proximity in the vector model, the scorefor “intermittent” would be used, scaled to its proximity.

According to other embodiments, a sentiment of the language used in thecommunication activity between one or more customers 120 and arepresentative of one or more service centers 140, is scored based on apredetermined message rating of communication activity. As an exampleonly and not by way of limitation, predetermined ratings may bedetermined for each service centers 140. Continuing with the aboveexample, system administrator 110 compares the “I am getting choppyaudio on my VOIP phone” communication activity from the user associatedwith customers 120 to determine if that message is associated with anyof the predetermined messages and, if so, a score is associated with thecommunication activity, based on a predetermined message rating.

In addition, and as discussed above, customer management system 100stores and organizes sentiment scores based on topics related to theinteraction between users of customers 120 and representatives ofservice centers 140 over one or more communication channels. Forexample, system administrator 110 may receive communication data 206,such as a log file or otherwise recorded conversations of thecommunication activity between one or more customers 120 and one or moreservice centers 140 and transcribe, sort, and/or organize communicationdata 206 based on a communication metric, factor, time aggregation orgranularity, communication channel type (voice, video, email, text, chator the like), communication type (telephone, fax, text message, instantmessaging, or the like), entity identification information, useridentification information, telephone number, representatives, location,or other like factors.

At activity 408, system administrator 110 compares configuration data204, communication data 206 and case data 208. System administrator 110may compare communication data 206 by various user-selected or automaticcomparisons. For example, and as discussed above, system administrator110 may compare the log files, recorded or transcribed conversations ofthe communication activity with a continuous sequence of n items ofconfiguration data 204 to determine if any of the adjacent elements fromthe sequence of n items are present in the communication activity. Asanother example and as discussed above, system administrator 110 maycompare the log files, recorded or transcribed conversations of thecommunication activity with a mapping of word vectors of configurationdata 204 to determine if any of those elements are present in thecommunication activity.

In addition, or as an alternative, system administrator 110 may permitservice centers 140 to select customizations or may automaticallyidentify user-specified predetermined key words or message ratings ofcommunication data 206, and identify the predetermined key words ormessages from the communication data 206. If any of the adjacentelements from the sequence of n items, elements of the word vectors orpredetermined key words or messages are present, system administrator110 determines a sentiment score and triggers one or more current orpredictive actions. An advanced user may also rate their owncommunication data 206 as, for example, ‘very positive’, ‘positive’,‘negative’ or ‘very negative’ and, given enough ratings, a predictivemodel of future communications will be custom built for that specificcustomer. For example, for a particular case identified by case data208, system administrator 110 may determine a sentiment score for theuser sentiment (i.e., 0.62), a contact associated with the sentiment(i.e., identity of the user of one or more customers 120), a company'sbase sentiment (i.e., “satisfied”) and/or the representative's sentiment(i.e., 0.77). Based on the sentiment, system administrator 110 maytrigger a predetermined process for the representative to deescalate thesentiment of the user of one or more customers 120, to a satisfactorylevel.

At activity 410, system administrator 110 displays a sentiment score ofcommunication data 206 according to one or more charts, graphs, scorecards, spreadsheets, alerts and/or reports. Such charts, graphs, scorecards, spreadsheets, alerts and/or reports may be scheduled to be runaccording to user-selected criteria, such as customizations orcorrelations, at any suitable time period or upon a specified systemadministrator 110 action. According to embodiments, a sentiment may berepresented by a numerical value, such as −1 to 1, 1-10, 1-100 or thelike, a color code, such as green is very positive, red is very negativeor the like, or a series of phrases, such as, “Happy,” “Satisfied,”“Content,” “Not Satisfied,” and “Not Happy.” Although particularexamples of representations of the sentiment score are described asparticular ranges of numbers, colors and/or phrases, embodimentscontemplate any ranges of numbers, colors or phrases, according toparticular needs.

In addition, or as an alternative, and based on the sentiment scoreassociated with the communication activity, system administrator 110triggers the representation of the sentiment on one or morecommunication devices 148 of one or more service centers 140. Forexample and continuing with the above example, in which a userassociated with customers 120 opens a communication channel and typesinto the chat window “I am getting choppy audio on my VOIP phone,”system administrator 110 represents the sentiment of the user by anumerical value, a color code and/or a series of phrases. In oneembodiment, and based on the adjacent words “choppy audio,” systemadministrator 110 displays a numerical value of, for example, a score of1 out of a score of 1-10 on one or more communication devices 148 of therepresentative of the one or more service centers 140.

In other embodiments, and based on the adjacent words “choppy audio,”system administrator 110 displays a color code of, for example, red onone or more communication devices 148 of the representative of the oneor more service centers 140. In addition, or as an alternative, systemadministrator 110 may use red font to color code the words “choppyaudio” on one or more communication devices 148 of the representative ofthe one or more service centers 140. According to yet other embodiments,and based on the adjacent words “choppy audio,” system administrator 110displays a phrase, for example, “Not Satisfied,” on one or morecommunication devices 148 of the representative of the one or moreservice centers 140. Based on the sentiment score, and as discussedbelow, embodiments trigger automated processes, responses, suggestionsfor the representatives, and the like.

In addition, embodiments track the communication activity to determinewhether the sentiment score is escalating or deescalating. According toembodiments, system administrator 110 may use a time-based evaporationperiod to track the psychological mean reversion of the sentiment score.For example, if a customer communication activity escalates a sentimentscore, over time the sentiment score will deescalate based on a uniformevaporation of the escalated score, until it reaches the pre-escalatedmean. According to other embodiments, system administrator 110 maypermit service centers 140 to customize the sentiment score over timebased on the interaction between users of customers 120 andrepresentatives of service centers 140 including case data 208. Forexample, and as discussed above, each communication activity isassociated with one or more cases or tickets of one or more servicecenters 140, and logged in connection with case data 208. Systemadministrator 110 allows service centers 140 to determine the sentimentscore based on the average of all of the cases or tickets of case data208, a first case or ticket of case data 208, the last case or ticket ofcase data 208, or a particular case or ticket or some combination ofcase or ticket of case date 208, according to particular needs. Inaddition, or as an alternative, system administrator 110 updates thedisplay of the numerical value, the color code and/or the series ofphrases throughout the communication activity and provides a real-time,averaged, or other updated representation of the sentiment score to oneor more service centers 140.

According to other embodiments, system administrator 110 may block arepresentative associated with one or more service centers 140 fromcommunicating via the communication channel to a user of one or morecustomers 120, if the sentiment score is below a predeterminedthreshold. For example, and continuing with the above example, if thesentiment of the user associated with customers 120 who typed into thechat window “I am getting choppy audio on my VOIP phone,” beganescalating and the representative typed a chat message that would movethe sentiment score above a predetermined threshold. Systemadministrator 110 would cause the chat message from the representativeto not be communicated to the user associated with customers 120. Inaddition, or as an alternative, system administrator 110 mayautomatically reword the chat message, provide a message to therepresentative to correct the chat message and/or escalate the chatmessage to a manager. According to embodiments, system administrator 110would trigger automated processes, responses, suggestions for therepresentative or transfer the communication activity to anotherrepresentative or manager. In addition, such charts, graphs, scorecards, spreadsheets, alerts, reports, and/or blocking may be customizedby a user, customer, representative, or service center 140, according toparticular needs.

FIG. 5 illustrates the communication channels of FIG. 1 in greaterdetail according to an embodiment. As discussed above, each of thecommunication devices 124 a-124 n of the one or more customers 120 maycommunicate with each of the communication devices 148 a-148 n of theone or more service centers 140 via communication channels. As discussedabove, if service centers 140 provides subscription services tocustomers 120, one or more users associated with customers 120 maycommunicate with one or more representatives associated with servicecenters 140 over various communication channels. As an example only andnot by way of limitation, a user of communication device 124 a may usecell phone 306 or land line 308 to communicate with a representative ofcommunication device 148 a using a voice communication channel toinquire about various subscription service issues. On another occasion,the same user of communication device 124 a may use anothercommunication device 124 or the same communication device 124 tocommunicate with a different representative 148 b using anothercommunication channel to inquire about other subscription serviceissues. Although, particular communication devices and associatedcommunication channels are shown and described; embodiments contemplateany number of users associated with communication devices 124, anynumber of representatives associated with communication devices 148 andany communication channel, according to particular needs.

At activity 412, system administrator 110 may monitor the communicationchannels to determine whether there is a change in the communicationmetric, factor, time aggregation or granularity, communication channeltype, communication type, entity identification information, useridentification information, telephone number, representatives, orlocation on a case by case basis. System administrator 110 mayautomatically choose which communication metrics are analyzed accordingto comparisons identified by system administrator 110 at activity 408.

At activity 414, system administrator 110 may identify trends within thecommunication channels by monitoring changes in communication data 206according to customizations or correlations selected in activity 412.For example, if system administrator 110 identifies that anrepresentative's sentiment score is lower than average, it may monitorthat representative's future sentiment score to determine whether therepresentative's sentiment scores are increasing or decreasing withrespect to a particular, customer or topic. As another example, ifsystem administrator 110 identifies that a customer's sentiment score islower than the rest of the customer base, it may monitor that customer'sfuture sentiment score to determine whether the customer's sentimentscores are increasing or decreasing with respect to a particularrepresentative or topic. In this way, communication system 110 maygenerate alerts or reports with regard to the performance of usersassociated with customers 120 and/or representatives associated withservice centers 140.

According to embodiments, system administrator 110 may permit one ormore service centers 140 to compare communication data 206 withconfiguration data 204 and case data 208, and analyze the comparisonover a specified time period, such as, for example, per year, quarter,month, and compare information by users of one or more customers 120 andrepresentatives of one or more service centers 140, in an intuitive way.Furthermore, embodiments contemplate permitting one or more servicecenters 140 to schedule alerts or reports and generate sentiment scoresthat are configured to assist a representative to predict whether acustomer is more likely to respond in a certain way, based on theoverall customer sentiment and the historical data. According to otherembodiments, system administrator 110 provides a next issue resolutionsuch that, system administrator 110 provides a real-time feedback to therepresentative of service centers 140 based on the determined sentimentscore as an indicator of behavior of the communication activity.

Reference in the foregoing specification to “one embodiment”, “anembodiment”, or “some embodiments” means that a particular feature,structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodimentis included in at least one embodiment of the invention. The appearancesof the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in the specificationare not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.

While the exemplary embodiments have been shown and described, it willbe understood that various changes and modifications to the foregoingembodiments may become apparent to those skilled in the art withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the present invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for scoring sentiments of communicationactivity, comprising: one or more databases storing one or more servicecenter tickets associated with one or more communication devices; and acomputer, comprising a processor and memory, configured to: log one ormore monitored communication activities in connection with case data;determine a sentiment score based on one or more correlations betweenthe one or more monitored communication activities and predeterminedcommunication data for at least one of the one or more service centertickets; and store the sentiment score in the one or more databases. 2.The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more communication devices isone or more service center devices or one or more customer devices. 3.The system of claim 1, wherein the computer is further configured to:identify the predetermined communication data from the one or moremonitored communication activities; and responsive to identifying thepredetermined communication data, assign the sentiment score to the oneor more communication devices.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein thepredetermined communication data is one or more of: adjacent elementsfrom a sequence; elements of word vectors; predetermined key words; andpredetermined messages.
 5. The system of claim 1, wherein the computeris further configured to: identify a case from the case data; and assignthe sentiment score for the case to one or more of: a user sentiment; acontact associated with the sentiment; a company's base sentiment; andthe representative's sentiment.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein thecomputer is further configured to: compare the sentiment score and asatisfactory sentiment score threshold; and responsive to determiningthe sentiment score is not satisfactory, initiate a predeterminedprocess to deescalate the sentiment to a satisfactory level.
 7. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the sentiment score is based at least in parton one or more the following: an average of all cases of the case data;a first case of the case data; a last case of the case data; and aselected one or more cases of the case data.
 8. A computer-implementedmethod for scoring sentiments of communication activity, comprising:logging one or more monitored communication activities in connectionwith case data; determining a sentiment score based on one or morecorrelations between the one or more monitored communication activitiesand predetermined communication data for at least one of one or moreservice center tickets associated with one or more communicationdevices; and storing the sentiment score in the one or more databases.9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the one or moreservice center devices or one or more customer devices.
 10. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising: identifyingthe predetermined communication data from the one or more monitoredcommunication activities; and responsive to identifying thepredetermined communication data, assigning the sentiment score to theone or more communication devices.
 11. The computer-implemented methodof claim 8, wherein the predetermined communication data is one or moreof: adjacent elements from a sequence; elements of word vectors;predetermined key words; and predetermined messages.
 12. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising: identifyinga case from the case data; and assigning the sentiment score for thecase to one or more of: a user sentiment; a contact associated with thesentiment; a company's base sentiment; and the representative'ssentiment.
 13. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, furthercomprising: comparing the sentiment score and a satisfactory sentimentscore threshold; and responsive to determining the sentiment score isnot satisfactory, initiating a predetermined process to deescalate thesentiment to a satisfactory level.
 14. The computer-implemented methodof claim 8, wherein the sentiment score is based at least in part on oneor more the following: an average of all cases of the case data; a firstcase of the case data; a last case of the case data; and a selected oneor more cases of the case data.
 15. A non-transitory computer-readablemedium comprising software for scoring sentiments of communicationactivity, the software when executed: logs one or more monitoredcommunication activities in connection with case data; determines asentiment score based on one or more correlations between the one ormore monitored communication activities and predetermined communicationdata for at least one of one or more service center tickets associatedwith one or more communication devices; and stores the sentiment scorein the one or more databases.
 16. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium of claim 15, wherein the one or more service center devices orone or more customer devices.
 17. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium of claim 15, wherein the software when executed further:identifies the predetermined communication data from the one or moremonitored communication activities; and responsive to identifying thepredetermined communication data, assigns the sentiment score to the oneor more communication devices.
 18. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium of claim 15, wherein the predetermined communication data is oneor more of: adjacent elements from a sequence; elements of word vectors;predetermined key words; and predetermined messages.
 19. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein thesoftware when executed further: identifies a case from the case data;and assigns the sentiment score for the case to one or more of: a usersentiment; a contact associated with the sentiment; a company's basesentiment; and the representative's sentiment.
 20. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the software when executedfurther: compares the sentiment score and a satisfactory sentiment scorethreshold; and responsive to determining the sentiment score is notsatisfactory, initiates a predetermined process to deescalate thesentiment to a satisfactory level.